These are real examples taken from schools/colleges and PTA’s
“Is that a real picture or is that special effects? ”
10 year old black girl in response to seeing a photo of a caring black family
“I never knew Egypt was in Africa!”
18 year old black college student, white primary school teacher
“The only thing they teach us at school about black people is that we were slaves”
15 year old pupil
“My 7 year old daughter was taught that Africa was a big jungle where people drank blood”
28 year old parent
Me and my friends did the black doll white doll thing with my 10 year old - they all though the white doll was smart and pretty and the black doll was ugly and we’re all black teachers who think we’re conscious.”
Black female teacher 32
“We were taught that Britain civilised Africa and the only reason there was a slave trade was because the blacks were selling each other.”
14 year old year girl
“I thought I knew my history but after that film I realise how much I’ve been brainwashed.”
35 year old parent
“We do recognise black history, we have posters of Kelly Rowland and there’s going to be some African drumming.”
Headteacher at a primary school in west London
“It’s not fair, we spent so much time on WW2/WW1 but I never told the kids about the African/Caribbean presence because I didn’t know myself.
Teacher and parent
“How can I tell my child something they never taught me in the first place? I wouldn’t even know what there was to tell unless I’d come to this event.”
38 year old parent
“Daddy, I went to school today and somebody really insulted me, they called me an African!”
11 year old daughter of Nigerian parents
“What is a Windrush?”
15 year old in secondary school
“We should be grateful really, I mean if it wasn’t for slavery where would we be?”
35 year old black man
“This is a bit radical! How can you say the ancient Egyptians were African? I’m not really into this ‘black stuff”
Black female teacher 32
“Sir, until you came to our school I never knew there were black people in WWII and we studied it for three weeks”
13 year old year girl
“We don’t believe in Black History Month, we have an International Diversity Month where all of our histories are represented”
Head teacher at a primary school
“For black history month we will get the children to trace their family tree, it’s quite easy to go back 200 years and imagine what fun things we would discover!”
Teacher to parents at a primary school were 70 per cent of the children were African-Caribbean.
“OK class, hands up, who’s heard of Stephen Lawrence?”
Teacher to class of 28, 15 year olds in a West London secondary school. Two hands went up.
For a list of informative talks & films on the African history in Britain and the world click visit: www.blackhistorywalks.co.uk
